Friday, September 29, 2006

Oh, those delightful right-wing family values.

THE COMING TIDAL WAVE OF HYPOCRISY. It's going to be amusing to see how the wankersphere spins this. You do remember, of course, how a sitting president having legal and consensual sexual relations with a woman was appalling, depraved, disgusting and pretty much a harbinger of the end of Western civilisation and the heat death of the universe. Yeah, you remember that, don't you?

So how are the Republicans taking the notion of a sitting GOP congressman soliciting sex over the Internet from teenage boys? About the way you would have expected:

Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois said he supported Foley's resignation.

"He's done, as of now; he's done the right thing," Hastert said. "I've asked John Shimkus, who is the head of the Page board, to look into this issue regarding Congressman Foley. We want to make sure that all of our pages are safe, and the page system is safe."

"None of us are very happy about it," Hastert said.

There will, of course, be endless descriptions of how his colleagues are heartbroken over this and how they will be praying for him, etc, etc. You know the drill by now.

Get your barf bag. You know what's coming.

AND THE IDIOCY BEGINS ... Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a meme (from the user comments):

What a terrible tragedy! I've known Mark for years and he was an extremely dedicated and effective legislator. He evidently fought with demons that none of us knew about. This is a big loss for the State of Florida.

Allrighty then ... Foley wasn't a disgusting pedophile and pervert, he was just a poor, tortured soul wrestling with his inner demons. Take it away, wankersphere.

7 comments:

It really pains me to say something to defend a closeted Republican asshole, but age 16 is not pedophilia. It's completely legal in almost every state in the US including in Florida. If he was abusing a position of trust that's one thing. But 16 is not pedophilia. This pedophilia hysteria is way out of hand.

I think you're confusing two issues here. One is the legal issue and you may in fact be correct that, strictly from a legal perspective, there may be nothing actionable here -- I'm not sure. I'd sure hate to try to make that defense, though.

However, the larger issue is whether Foley is, in fact, a pedophile -- that is, someone who is sexually attracted to children, and of that, I don't think there is any doubt.

It's also possible that, because he's in a position of authority, he has access to the personal records of all of those pages so that he can be very csreful to correspond only with those that are at least the age of consent. In other words, using that private information, he can make sure that he can indulge himself while technically remaining on just the right side of the law.

In any case, I doubt any sane person is going to try to split those legal hairs. The fact that Foley already resigned means he knows he's in deep shit. And I doubt any of those pages' parents are going to be interested in any tricky legal parsing either.

P.S. It will also be interesting to see if anyone tries that legalistic hair-splitting, given that those same people were undoubtedly the same ones who were absolutely howling with outrage over a completely legal and consensual affair just a few years back.

dear thickslab, i went a-googling and this is what i found, re age of consent:

"FLORIDA 18

The age of sexual consent is 16 for adults who are under 24 years of age,or if the adult that is 24 years of age or older is married to the minor."

the page is sixteen, mind you, the republican leadership knew about this eleven months ago. when did this activity start or how old was the page at the beginning of this episode? and in either case, according to florida law, pedophile is the true and accurate term. foley is far older than 24 and is not married to the page. spin it how you like but foley IS a pedophile according to the law. cheers

Shaved Ape: You are correct regarding the age of consent in Florida. In Washington, DC, however, it is legal. Read § 22-4108. and § 22-4101 of the DC Code. The DC Code clearly states that it's illegal for someone who is a "child" to have sex with someone more than 4 years older. It defines "child" as someone under 16. Therefore someone who is 16 can have sex with anyone over 16.

As for the word "pedophile," the Florida law doesn't define someone over 24 having sex with someone 16 as a "pedophile," nor does it meet the DSM definition, which applies to pre-pubescent children. So your statement that Foley "is a pedophile according to the law" is incorrect. The term would be "unlawful sexual activity with a minor."

Canadian Cynic: As I stated above, pedophiles are attracted to young children who haven't gone through puberty yet. That's not the case here. 16 years old is NOT pedophilia.

As for your wild theory about Foley checking records, I call bullshit. It can basically be boiled down to "The fact that he avoided young children and only talked to 16 year olds *proves* that he really likes young children because he purposely tried to avoid the younger ones to keep out of trouble" is the kind of bizarre reasoning worthy of someone like Steven den Beste, who is famous for arguing "The fact that we didn't find WMD in Iraq *proves* they had them because it must mean that Iraq got rid of them before we invaded!" And besides, pages are all at least 16 years old.

I'm not defending what Foley did because he was in a position of authority and he abused it. He is a scummy, closeted asshole. But according to what we know, he was NOT a pedophile. To call him one is to buy into bullshit hysteria.

The best source for information on this is blogactive.com, operated by Mike Rogers. Rogers' site exposes closeted hypocrites who work against the gay community in the US. Foley has been on his radar for several years. This is not a news story, it has been known for years, it just happens that the MSM, ABC News, finally picked up on it. No different than disgraced, now dead, Spokane Mayor Jim West, who abused his authority, bashed the gay community, and cruised the internet for teens. These "family values" assholes are the biggest wankin' hypocrites. One thing is certain, the closet doors never stayed locked forever. Next on the list of closet cases working against gay rights: Ken Mehlman, family values man, who at 39 years old, never married, never had children, cruises guys at gyms in DC.